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MW 31 August 2016

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maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2016 MATTHEW VELLA ARCHBISHOP Charles Scicluna delivered a scathing criticism of the way Maltese society is beset by malicious internet gossip and environmental degradation. In an homily for the feast of St Julian's on Sunday, Scicluna used the tragic example of the hunters' saint – he murdered his parents as they slept in his bed, under the false impression that the couple were his wife and a lover – as a victim of gossip and inf lamma- tory comment. "I warn those who use blogs and the internet to instigate the Mal- tese against each other, by muck- raking and insulting and humili- ating each other," Scicluna said, in an obvious reference to the un- official partisan gossip employed by Daphne Caruana Galizia and Glenn Bedingfield in their blogs, to target critics of the Nationalist and Labour parties, respectively. Even Scicluna tends to be a tar- get of Bedingfield's blog, which Joseph Muscat's aide actually pens from his workplace at the Office of the Prime Minister, when the archbishop criticises government policy. In the past Muscat refused to condemn a gratuitous 'clerical child abuse' dig by Bedingfield against Sci- cluna. "Whoever carries out this insti- gation will have God to answer to. It is creating an environment that does not beget either unity or peace, that does not give jus- tice. When we use the media as a means of destruction, jealousy and hatred, even this is a sin." Scicluna was also unequivocal about the state of the environ- ment having become "the biggest tragedy of our time, even in our country". "We don't have deer in Malta," Scicluna said, again referring to the effigy of St Julian and his wounded quarry. "If we did, we would have shot them dead, be- cause we want to kill anything that f lies and moves," the arch- bishop said. Scicluna has been a vocal critic of high-rise development, which has been made possible by a Plan- ning Authority policy designed to accommodate tower projects in areas such as Sliema and St Ju- lian's among others. "If we're unable to swim in our polluted waters, breathe in our countryside, and destroy our ur- ban patrimony with our greed, the prophecy of St Julian's wound- ed deer will be true for us as well: 'you will kill your parents'. "And our mother is Malta, the sweet land we sing to in our na- tional anthem… would we kill our roots today?" News Archbishop warns malicious bloggers: 'you'll have God to answer to' Charles Scicluna's homily to parishioners celebrating hunters' patron saint St Julian warns against continued destruction of countryside and urban landscape Archbishop Charles Scicluna in a photo with Glenn Bedingfield, who runs his own personal blog against Labour critics from inside Castille

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